the crown vic is very big in russia, and japan. almost all the pursuit cars
in moscow are crown vics. I don't remember what towns it is in japan that
uses the crown vic, but 2 years ago a car carrier dropped off a load of
yodas, and reloaded with P-71 interceptors. i asked the lot owner about it,
and he told me the names of the 3 or 4 towns in japan and a few other
countries that the 1200 cars were going to.

If you have ever been to Japan, you would realize that American sized
cars are a real detriment. There are a number of toll routes and
freeways where they might be used to effect, but not in the towns and
cities. Heck, in the town and villages, the roads and streets are not
much wider than a Crown Vic. I can recall a lot of places where the
cops would have had to park blocks away from a destination and walk
in.

The Russian police cars were donated by the US government after the warmup,
as an aid to help fight the explosive increase in crime. You can't use that
as a scale for what they'd rather be driving.
Before that they had Lada 1200s, and were quite pleased. But after the fall
of the USSR, they had no money to keep them running, so they ended up
having to patrol on bicycle. That led to the US providing vehicles and
parts to keep them running.

Just try to find a Crown Vic at a Ford dealer. Never on the lot.
The consumer version seems to be the Mercury Grand Marquis, which is
readily available at STEEP discounts. This platform has morphed into
the modern Checker cab, an anachronism which keeps selling into a large
niche market ... cop cars, cabs and limos (the Town Car variant).
Look at what all that did for the Checker Cab company :(.
John

I'm not a big fan of the American cars in general, but they're not all
garbage. One thing you need to understand though, is that roads in North
America are generally of much poorer condition than in Europe, and
distances far greater, so the cars need softer suspension to offer somewhat
decent comfort. And as a result, they have poorer handling.
But the only European cars that even come close in size to a Crown Victoria
is the Volvo 7s and 9s (which btw is just a Ford by a different name), BMW
7s, and Mercedes E and S.
And even then, just because it's a European car, doesn't mean it's any
safer to be a cop. In Denmark, I've seen cops crash just about every model
of car they have: Peugeot 406, BMW 535i, Volvo 440, Ford Mondeo, Ford
Taunus, and a whole bunch of others. The Beemers were originally bought to
catch speeders, but had to be scrapped because they had too much power for
the cops to handle.
A lot of the Fords actually got lowered and stiffened suspension, high
performance brakes, high-performance ABS electronics, and a bunch other
mods, just for the cars to be able to survive everyday police work. No
off-the-shelf car can handle being pushed hard every single day, the
components are just not designed for hard driving.
If you want cops to be safe, then you need to basically provide them with
race cars: Roll cage, racing suspension and brakes, increased driver input
(the amount of feeling that gets filtered out of the steering on modern
cars makes them more dangerous at high speed maneuvering).

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